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When St. Paul describes the gifts God has given the Church, he includes teaching among the most important (see 1 Cor 12:28). No surprise there. "Go teach!" was the final mandate of Jesus. History has long taught that without teachers to announce the Gospel and educate the young, the Church struggles to survive. Evangelization through good teaching is essential to Catholic life. Pastoral leaders in developing nations say that Catholic education is what attracts people to Jesus and his Church. When it comes to education, nobody has a better track record than the Church.
In the 20th century, for example, there was no greater witness to the effectiveness of Catholic schools than the Nazi and communist efforts to destroy them. Pope Benedict XVI's own beloved homeland — where to be Bavarian was to be Catholic — was perhaps hardest hit in all of Germany. By January 1939 nearly 10,000 German Catholic schools had been closed or taken over by the Nazi Party. Tyrants know and fear the true strength of a Catholic education: What parents begin in the home, Catholic schools extend to society at large.
But what of today's Catholic schools that exist in a world largely free of those sorts of 20th-century threats? Are we not facing our own crisis of closure for the Catholic school in America?
The answer is yes. Statistics from the National Catholic Educational Association tell a sobering tale about Catholic schools in the United States. From a student enrollment in the mid-1960s of more than 5.2 million in nearly 13,000 elementary and secondary Catholic schools across America, there are now only half as many, with just 7,000 schools and 2.1 million students enrolled.
The reasons for the decline are familiar: the steady drop in vocations to the religious teaching orders who were the greatest single work force in the Church's modern period; the drastic shift in demographics of the late-20th century that saw a dramatic drop-off in Catholic immigration from Europe; the rising cost of living since the late 1970s that forced nearly every American parent to become a wage earner and put Catholic education beyond their budget; and the crumbling of an intact neighborhood-based Catholic culture that depended upon the parochial school as its foundation.
The most crippling reason, however, may rest in an enormous shift in the thinking of many American Catholics — namely, that the responsibility for Catholic schools belongs only to the parents of the students who attend them, not to the entire Church. Nowadays, Catholics often see a Catholic education as a consumer product, reserved to those who can afford it. The result is predictable: Catholics as a whole in the United States have for some time disowned their school system, excusing themselves as individuals, parishes or dioceses from any further involvement with a Catholic school simply because their own children are not enrolled there, or their parish does not have its own school.
The truth is that the entire parish, the whole diocese and the universal Church benefit from Catholic schools in ways that keep communities strong. So all Catholics have a duty to support them. Reawakening a sense of common ownership of Catholic schools may be the biggest challenge the Church faces in any revitalization effort ahead. Thus we Catholics need to ask ourselves a risky question: Who needs Catholic schools, anyway?
The answer: We all do. Much of the research on Catholic education conducted over the last five decades — from Father Andrew Greeley to the University of Notre Dame; from the National Opinion Research Center to the work of independent, often non-Catholic scholars — has answered with a unanimous voice that without a doubt Catholic schools are an unquestioned success in every way: spiritually, academically and communally. More to the point, the graduates they produce emerge as lifelong practitioners of their faith. These Catholic graduates have been, are and will be our leaders in Church and society.
More could be written, of course, about how Catholic schools continue to excel in so many ways, helping to form citizens who are unabashedly believers in the way they live out what is most noble in our American identity. The few points listed above are potent reminders of the many long-term effects that Catholic schools have on the formation of their students. As both history has shown and researchers have documented, there are plenty of reasons for all American Catholics to take proud ownership of Catholic schools.
Not only should the reasons behind changes in attitude toward Catholic schools give us pause, but also the consequences of letting this school system decline. If Catholic education promotes lifelong commitment to faith and virtue, a high sense of social justice, greater numbers of religious vocations and an embrace of a way of life based on responsible stewardship, then will not its continued decline risk further erosion in all of these areas? Catholic history can answer this clearly.
In New York, for example, a nagging concern from the 19th century is re-emerging at the start of the 21st. My predecessor, Archbishop John Hughes — famously known as Dagger John for his fearsome wit and readiness to fight for Catholic rights — struggled to rid the New York public schools in the 1840s of their anti-Catholic bias. He was convinced, after watching immigrant families fight discrimination, that "the days had come, and the place, in which the school is more necessary than the church" (from James Burns' "A History of Catholic Education in the United States"). Quite a statement — one echoed by several of his brother bishops, including a saint, John Neumann, bishop of Philadelphia, and the scholar and reformer John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria, who said that "without parish schools, there is no hope that the Church will be able to maintain itself in America" (see David Sweeney's "The Life of John Lancaster Spalding").
These men understood that until Catholic schools were up and running, Catholic life would be stagnant. They made the establishment of Catholic schools their priority, and, thank God, most other American bishops followed their example. In 1956, for instance, my own parish in Ballwin, Mo., built its school even before its church, and I am sure glad they did, because that year I entered first grade to begin the most formative eight years of my life.
Given the aggressive secularization of American culture, could it be that Catholics are looking at the same consequences that met those 19th-century prelates? Today's anti-Catholicism hardly derives from that narrow 19th-century Protestantism, intent on preserving its own cultural and political hold. Those battles are long settled. Instead, the Catholic Church is now confronted by a new secularization asserting that a person of faith can hardly be expected to be a tolerant and enlightened American. Religion, in this view, is only a personal hobby, with no implications for public life. Under this new scheme, to take one's faith seriously and bring it to the public square somehow implies being un-American. To combat this notion, an equally energetic evangelization — with Catholic schools at its center — is all the more necessary.
The 21st-century version of the Hughes predicament, which tried to establish Catholic rights in the face of a then anti-Catholic America, would seem to suggest that without Catholic schools the Church in the United States is growing less Catholic, less engaged with culture and less capable of transforming American life with the Gospel message. As long as we Catholics refuse to acknowledge that the overall health of the Church in the United States is vitally linked not only to the survival but the revival of the Catholic school, we are likely to miss the enormous opportunity this present moment extends.
It is time to recover our nerve and promote our schools for the 21st century. The current hospice mentality — watching our schools slowly die — must give way to a renewed confidence. American Catholic schools need to be unabash-edly proud of their proven gritty ability to transmit faith and values to all their students, particularly welcoming the immigrant and the disadvantaged, whose hope for success lies in an education that makes them responsible citizens. This is especially true for the Catholic Hispanics in the country, whose children account for a mere 4 percent of the Catholic school population. Failure to include the expanding Hispanic population in Catholic education would be a huge generational mistake.
To regrow the Catholic school system, today's efforts need to be rooted in the long-term financial security that comes from institutional commitment through endowments, foundations and stable funding sources, and also from every parish supporting a Catholic school, even if it is not "their own." Catholic education is a communal, ecclesial duty, not just for parents of schoolchildren or for parishes blessed to have their own school. Surely American Catholics have sufficient wealth and imagination to accomplish this.
It is both heartening and challenging to remember that Catholic churches and schools were originally built on the small donations of immigrants who sacrificed nickels, dimes and dollars to make their children Catholics who are both well educated and fully American. Have we lost our nerve, the dare and dream that drove our ancestors in the faith, who built a Catholic school system that is the envy of the world?
We cannot succumb to the petty turf wars that pit Catholic schools against religious education programs and other parish ministries. Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that the Church is all about both/and, not either/or. Strong Catholic schools strengthen all other programs of evangelization, service, catechesis and sanctification. The entire Church suffers when Catholic schools disappear.
As Bishop Roger J. Foys of Covington, Ky., has said: "While there may be alternatives to Catholic education, there are no substitutes."
Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan is the archbishop of New York and released "Pathways to Excellence," a new course of long-term planning for Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York. This article was originally published in America magazine, and is reprinted with permission.
The number of Catholic elementary schools
In 1975: 8,414
In 2010: 5,889
The number of Catholic secondary schools
In 1975: 1,624
In 2010: 1,205
Students in Catholic elementary schools
In 1975: 2.557 million
In 2010: 1.508 million
Students in Catholic secondary schools
In 1975: 884,181
In 2010: 611,723
School openings/closings during the 2009-2010 academic year
24 - new schools opened
174 - schools closed or consolidated
Average cost of tuition in a Catholic school
$3,383 - Elementary mean parish school tuition
$8,182 - Secondary mean freshman tuition
Percent of Catholic secondary students that graduate
Percent that go on to college
Of those who graduate, 84.7 percent attend college versus 44.1 percent of public school graduates.
Source: National Catholic Education Association
This Catholic Schools Week is themed "A+ for America," to emphasize the positive contributions Catholic schools make on U.S. society. For more information on the week, visit www.ncea.org.
Enrollment of Catholic schools for the 2009-10 academic year
2,119,341 students
(1,507,618 elementary school; 611,723 secondary school)
Number of U.S. Catholic schools in the United States
(5,889 elementary schools; 1,205 secondary schools)
Dioceses with largest enrollments in the 2009-10 year
1. Chicago
2. Philadelphia
3. New York
4. Los Angeles
5. Cleveland
6. Brooklyn
7. St. Louis
8. Cincinnati
9. Boston
10. New Orleans
11. Newark
12. Miami
13. St. Paul/Minneapolis
14. Detroit
15. Rockville Centre, N.Y.
16. Milwaukee
17. Baltimore
18. Washington, D.C.
19. San Francisco
20. Seattle
In a meeting last fall with members of Catholic Action in Italy, Pope Benedict XVI was asked what does it mean to be an educator today? Here's an excerpt of his response:
"I would say that being educators means having a joy in your heart and communicating it to all to make life beautiful and good; it means offering reasons and objectives for the journey of life, offering the beauty of the person of Jesus and making others fall in love with him, his way of life, his freedom, his great love full of confidence in God the Father. It means above all always keeping the goal of every existence high oriented to that 'more' which comes from God. This demands a personal knowledge of Jesus, a personal, daily, loving contact with him in prayer, in meditation on God's Word, in fidelity to the sacraments, to the Eucharist, to confession; it demands communicating the joy of being in the Church, of having friends to share not only problems but also the beautiful things and surprises of the life of faith.
"You know well that you are not the children's owners but servants of their joy in the name of Jesus, guides to him. ... You are good teachers if you know how to involve everyone for the benefit of the youngest. You cannot be self-sufficient, but you must make the urgency of the education of the young generations felt at all levels. ... Have the courage, I would like to say, the audacity, not to allow any context to be without Jesus, his tenderness that you make everyone experience, even the neediest and abandoned, with your mission as educators."
Read experts' reponses to Archbishop Dolan here
Copyright © 1996-2018 Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.


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Following up to the release of the original DT heat-pipe TherMax series, Spire has recently introduced the TherMax Eclipse II. Targeting overclocking enthusiasts, Spire's new heatsink is equipped with five 8mm Direct Touch U-Shaped sintered powder heat-pipes combined with black-nickel coated stamped heat-sink fins:
The TherMax Eclipse II is ready to cool the 130W to 150W processors made by Intel and AMD. The device can be installed in Intel 1156/1366/775 platforms in combination with the AMD AM3/AM2/940/939 platforms . Another welcome new feature are the possibility of mounting two fans simultaneously for even better cooling results. These can be easily installed with the included Anti-vibe rubber fan mounts.
- Product features
- Full specifications

subset: commoncrawl


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Microsoft Dreamspark Premium is now available to all UAB STEM programs at no cost. The Dreamspark program supports technical education by providing access to Microsoft software for learning, teaching and research purposes for faculty & students engaged in a STEM program (science, technology, engineering, math). UAB will be working to make a limited selection of products available to non-STEM programs, but current access to the Dreamspark products is for STEM programs only. For more guidelines on the appropriate rights for installation and use of products under the Dreamspark program click here.
According to Microsoft "DreamSpark is simple: it's all about giving students Microsoft professional-level developer and designer tools at no cost so that students can chase their dreams and create the next big breakthrough in technology - or just get a head start on their career." While most of the software is free, some items are at a small cost and if ordered you must provide a valid form of payment. However, those fee-based products should not be required as part of any course at UAB.
DreamSpark helps educators teach the latest technologies and experiment in research. To make learning more motivating, relevant, and engaging for today's students requires a diverse set of resources. DreamSpark gives educators the resources to ensure their classrooms always have the latest technologies to challenges, motivate, and keep students engaged in new ways.
Access to the Dreamspark program is through an external webportal managed by UAB IT. Login using your BlazerID and strong password (don't worry, the authentication takes place using a secure connection back to UAB...your password is never provided to the external website).
NOTE: While anyone with a valid BlazerID can login to the Dreamspark site, only those students and faculty engaged in a STEM program are currently authorized to order/download any software. Your ability to participate in the program is based on the information UAB passes to Dreamspark during the login process.
For more guidelines on the appropriate rights for installation and use of products under the Dreamspark program click here.
Step 1: Get Started Here >>> Order Now - DREAMSPARK Website (see instructions below...login using Single-Sign-on option)
Step 2: Click Sign-in (top right)
Step 3: Sign In using your BlazerID via Single Sign-On (box on the left)


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Have your eye on an HTC First, the for-all-intents-and-purposes Facebook phone, but can't decide if you should pull the trigger or not? Now is the time, as the device is available right this moment for just $0.99 on-contract with AT&T.
Whether you like Facebook or not, the HTC First is a great device. For just a dollar on-contract with AT&T right now, you can get a rather slick device with a 4.3-inch 720p Super LCD display, 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400, 16GB of storage, a 5-megapixel camera, access to AT&T's LTE network and best of all, stock Jelly Bean. Once you disable Facebook Home, your HTC first is a bonafide stock Android device, complete with Google Now and all the extras.
If you're sticking with the contract model, and Ma Bell is your carrier of choice, this is a fantastic deal. The First isn't the best of the best, but it's a very capable device well worth a dollar. Hit up AT&T to take advantage of this deal now. Anyone with a First of their own, feel free to share your first hand experience with the device below.


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36 hours ago
Stobart Super League Round 23 Review
Stobart Super League XVII Round 23 Review by Simon Reuben
Wigan Warriors moved within touching distance of the League Leaders Shield with a comfortable win over injury hit Hull FC at DW Stadium.
Both teams were forced to make changes Wigan had 20-year-old stand-off Nick Powell deputising for injured Australian playmaker Brett Finch.
Hull were especially badly hit as they had up to eight regulars unavailable and they also lost England centre Kirk Yeaman midway through the first half after he went over on his ankle.
It was starman Sam Tomkins who got things underway as he sidestepped Hull back-rower Joe Westerman for the first try after 90-seconds.
He made a half-break that enabled centre George Carmont to send second rower Gareth Hock over six minutes later and his pass got Josh Charnley in at the corner for his first try on 16 minutes as Wigan were in total command.
Tomkins was also involved in the move that saw Charnley go over for his second try and the England Superstar grabbed his second on the stroke of half-time after running onto Matty Smith's precision kick to the line.
Hull's only reply before half-time came from 20-year-old winger Tom Lineham, who took Richard Whiting's pass to score as the Black and Whites trailed 24-4.
Ten minutes into the second period there was no stopping Charnley as he finished off Hughes


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The impetus behind the change? "It's clear the community wants retailtainment," said Barnes Noble Vice President of Development David Deason in a piece by Minnesota's Star Tribune . "This is a departure for us. It's not grab-and-go, but sit-and-stay."
This "sit-and-stay" idea is what brick and mortar retailers can take from Barnes Noble's retailtainment concept.
One of the central tenets behind retailtainment is the notion that the longer people spend in your store(s), the more likely they are to purchase something. So focus your retailtainment strategy on a particular area (to throw it back to our first point), and make sure that area is something that'll entice customers to "sit-and-stay" rather than "grab-and-go."
National Geographic and iP2Entertainment are in the process of developing two "museum retail" locations in China.
According to a National Geographic press release , the Shenyang and Hengqin centers (with the former set to open in summer 2017) will "offer a unique opportunity to play and explore through themed attractions, interactive demonstrations, and hands-on workshops in a fun and immersive environment that ignites kids' curiosity about the world."
The National Geographic-branded "Museum Retail" locations will fuse education with retail, and a portion of the proceeds will go to the National Geographic Society's nonprofit work.
It's this last part that we think brick and mortar retailers can take to heart. If you have the means, incorporate a charity element into your retailtainment experience . Customers will be more likely to get involved if they feel like they're contributing to a good cause.
We hope these retailtainment examples have shed some light on the kinds of experiences consumers are looking for. Have you come across any compelling retailtainment concepts recently? Let us know in the comments!
Nikki is Vend's content and copy wizard. American-born and Auckland-based, she's into reading (a lot), writing (obviously), and travelling (always).
If the new consumer shops differently; unique "Retailtainment " can certainly be the difference maker in hacking and growing your retail business.
Really enjoyed this piece Nikki. How effective do you think live events, free product give aways and offering educational aspects to a store's retail audience can be at boosting in-store traffic and especially increasing customer retention?
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Main difference between Angular 2 and React lies in the fact that Angular 2 is a framework, but React is an UI library. I.e. to build common application with React you will need to use other libraries, which will provide:
Angular 2+ provides (but doesn't require) most of them right from the box and has a way, official examples and style guides on how to use all that. Angular's conception is more monolithic and SPA-related, React itself is small and fast and can be used not only for SPA but to "animate" only parts of classic server-side-rendered application (PHP/Ruby/Python-based or others), near as old AngularJS. So they even can be used together.
On all that I have next opinion atm (I'm a fan (but not fanatic) of Angular):
After I tried React, I now see why it's so popular and that's not only because of "Facebook use it" — reason is in its initial simplicity. That's like "modern jQuery" of our days (there's nothing mocking in these words, vice versa), you can learn it pretty quick if you're good JavaScript developer (and if "not good" too so that could become an issue in future tbh, barrier to entry is too low).
I really recommend to start from official documentation and Docs section in it , it's not so big, you can get it all in one day. Documentation is very good and straightforward, also it mentions all core concepts and good practices as "pure components" and "single source of truth" which should be embraced and followed during development to have "bugs-free" (haha), "easily testable" and "simple-to-understand" app.
As good Angular 2+ developer you'll want to use TypeScript with React as well. Here's very good description on that https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript-React-Starter which uses official React boilerplate (called create-react-app)
React hasn't official CLI and it almost not needed. All useful scripts already exposed to package.json.
React docs doesn't contain that info, because it's a library, don't you forget?:) As I found, next structure mostly used (inside src folder):
But it's not strict. You can use folder without and nest your components and subcomponents respectively in subfolders as kind of modules in Angular world. Good examples:
If you read official documentation, you should know much about it already. Components in React are just (ideally "pure") functions which getting data as params and returning HTML/UI as a result. Here we have next analogues with Angular:
React uses — own syntax extension to JavaScript, layout lives together with your code and mixed with it tight in one file. Initially it may look very messy, but if you do it right you will see that it shines. IDE nicely helps with it. Because we're using TypeScript, files will have extension.
Official React create-react-app boilerplate goes without built-in support for SASS/SCSS or other preprocessors, but they have documentation how to set it up without ejecting Webpack config (or you can setup your IDE to build it with watcher, but that's not 100% bulletproof when building). You still will need to import your CSS files with as any other files inside you component, webpack will take care for they properly included. If you want to import SCSS files directly without those "crutches", you'll need to eject your Webpack config and add proper rules into it.
No documentation on where it should be placed, I think better to keep component-related styles near components.
You'll need to use react-router — most popular one. You will be stunned by its simplicity and declarative nature, because you define routes as components (as almost all in React) right in your layout. Even redirects done by showing/rendering <Redirect…/> component in your layout in proper moment of time.
You can use pure ES6 classes for that, BUT I would really recommend to use MobX as base for services and you're getting state manager in the same time as well — BOOM! With MobX you will be able to write Angular-like services, called stores here, with own kind of observables which brings reactive features into React rendering and not only rendering… Just remember to mutate state only with "actions" to stay clean. Good example of the service written using MobX is (you don't need to use stuff from there). Also check on , so you don't need to pass stores through props all down the hierarchy till components where you need them, but mind: passing data through props (data, not stores) is still preferred way to pass data to sub-components.
MobX is written on TypeScript which is a plus for us and using great power of decorators to significantly reduce boilerplate code (in comparison to Redux).
There's no modules. See "What about project structure?"
I think you heard about
already and you will be familiar with it if used
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/store, but I still recommend to use as I stated above, it's really cool and Angularish!
react-router has an article for that: https://reacttraining.com/react-router/web/guides/code-splitting .
React doesn't use DI by default and there's no need for it mostly. When you need to unit-test component with child components/sub-components you can use Enzyme with its "Shallow Rendering API" so no need to mock sub-components and if you follow good practices on pure components, testing should not be an issue.
is used widely there (with built-in Jasmine), together with Enzyme and all that performs well.
If you'll struggle with "how can I test component which uses async data retrieval in componentDidMount or async setState" and crashing Jest — check my answer on StackOverflow , that's really tricky issue.
You can get it by using
You can find about that , there's no easy export of environment config right from the box, you'll need to do that manually or use those ENV variables "as is" in plain way.
That's still open question for me, there are many libs for that. Best I can find, which is close to widely used @ngx-translate, is that one https://github.com/i18next/react-i18next .
I can say after Angular you will find that React is a "walk in the park", it's easier to learn and that's why it's so popular. It has lack of "official" conception for building actual apps in comparison to Angular and that has cons and pros in the same moment.
If I missed something important or was wrong in some details — write in comments.Thanks and happy coding:)
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The airport expansion has been dubbed "The Green Build" by the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority because of its commitment to environmental goals — low-water landscaping, reduced electricity, natural lighting and recycled materials. The Airport Authority is applying for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, the gold standard for environmentally conscious construction.
"What this demonstrates is that you can create a project that is customer-focused, financially responsible, supports the regional economy and is sustainable," said Robert H. Gleason, chairman of the nine-member Airport Authority board.
The Airport Authority is an independent agency created in 2003 to manage the day-to-day operations of San Diego International Airport and address the region's long-term air-transportation needs.
Terminal 2's expansion is a major milestone in the history of Lindbergh Field, which dates back to 1928.
"It's the largest project the airport has ever undertaken — and delivered — to the community," noted Gleason.
Looking at the larger picture, Gleason said Terminal 2's expansion is "just one step on our continuous journey." That journey, he said, is "part of the renewed focus on developing San Diego International Airport in a way that will continue to meet the demands of the traveling public and our airline partners for many years to come."
The expanded Terminal 2 includes: 10 new gates, adding roughly 50 flights per day; separate dedicated drop-off lanes for departing and arriving passengers; "smart curb" services that allow passengers to check in, print boarding passes, check baggage and view gate information from outside the terminal; more security lanes to improve flow of passengers and cut down on wait times; and fully automated baggage service streamlining operations.
A cornerstone of the newly expanded airport terminal is Sunset Cove, a dining area offering panoramic views and featuring trendy, locally based restaurants and shops. Among the concessionaires: Stone Brewing, Pannikin Coffee and Tea, Saffron, Phil's BBQ, Artisan Market, Stack Shack, 12th Fairway Bar and Grill, Warwick's of La Jolla, PGA Tour Shops, Lacoste, Kids Love San Diego, Jack in the Box, Jewelry by Samantha Davimes, Sunglass Hut, Brookstone, Brighton Collectibles, In Motion Entertainment, CNBC News and Be Relax Spa.
Airport Authority spokeswoman Katie Jones produced a laundry list of customer-friendly, progressive airport amenities now center stage at Lindbergh Field. She said there are 21 shops in the new expanded terminal and twice as many airport security lanes.
"Our new Sunset Cove concession area is beautiful, bright and open, with an enormous three-story glass wall and art," Jones said.
Noting more than 800 outlets have been added throughout the terminal so people can plug in and charge electrical devices like laptops and phones, Jones said a fully automated baggage system with 550 motors will increase both the speed and accuracy of handling while "screening 100 percent of bags going through."
"We tried really hard to bring in all the high-tech amenities and new features that people are looking for," Jones said.
There's even an airport amenity very few have seen until now — a bathroom for dogs, complete with a red fire hydrant.
Terminal 2's expansion and future projects are designed to meet projected growth at Lindbergh Field, the busiest one-runway airport in the country and second-busiest single-runway airport in the world. When ground broke on The Green Build project in 2009, the airport served an estimated 17 million per year. By 2030, that number could almost double.
Gleason said the objective of San Diego International Airport's green build was "to have the airport reflect the community, taking advantage of the climate, the outdoors, the downtown, the bay views.
"The new concessions are a mix of national and local brands and flavors that highlight the best San Diego has to offer," said Gleason.
"This (airport) space really speaks to San Diego and our culture as a community. Our goal here was to create an airport experience that had a sense of place," he said.


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Why Oprah Picked The Road
Her new Book Club selection isn't as surprising as you think.
Oprah announced her Book Club's new selection yesterday: Cormac McCarthy's TheRoad. A brutally violent End Times narrative doesn't seem like typical Oprah fare: The book follows a father and son's journey across a scorched earth in winter, battling cannibal slavers and looting abandoned buildings to survive. But in a Slate essay published last year, and reproduced below, Jennifer Egan glimpsed the novel's tender side. Although it's set in a man's world—and is part of a masculine literary tradition—The Road is essentially a domestic novel. Egan explains: "Beyond the immediate struggle for survival, the deep struggle explored in The Road is that of raising a child in a world without hope; and for the boy, the complementary challenge of assuming the responsibilities of manhood in such a world." Sounds right up Oprah's alley.
One begins The Road, Cormac McCarthy's new masterpiece, awaiting the moment when the burned and ravaged deathscape that surrounds his unnamed male protagonist and the man's young son will exhaust itself; when they'll look around a bend or across a ridge and see color and life—a natural world they can engage with. That's how it works in "Big Two-Hearted River," Ernest Hemingway's famous post-World War I short story, to which The Road seems to allude directly. Hemingway's story is the apotheosis of a form of literary masculinity that features men in contention with the natural world, testing their expertise against it and finding, in their mastery of it, meaning—even grace. McCarthy is no stranger to this brand of masculinity, but here he invokes it as a self-conscious memory, a literary past that hovers in the reader's imagination, reminding us of forms of masculine pleasure and satisfaction that have been irrevocably lost in the post-apocalyptic horror he's conjured. With only the corpse of a natural world to grapple with, McCarthy's father and son exist in a realm rarely seen in the ur-masculine literary tradition: the domestic. And from this unlikely vantage McCarthy makes a big, shockingly successful grab at the universal.
In the fictional realm Hemingway defined and epitomized, since visited by writers like Norman Maclean, William Kittredge, and Rick Bass, the natural world acts as a means of sublimating and exorcising men's emotional states. In Hemingway's case, its hallmark was a subdued meting out of descriptive detail that suggested emotional restraint, even repression. In "Big Two-Hearted River," the perennial Hemingway protagonist Nick Adams returns, wounded from war, to the town of Seney, only to find it burned to the ground. "There was no town, nothing but the rails and the burned-over country," the story reads. "The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had left not a trace ..." In a nearby river, Nick sees trout—the same he imagined fishing for during the nights in Italy (related in another Hemingway story, "Now I Lay Me") when he was wounded. "Nick looked down into the clear, brown water, colored from the pebbly bottom, and watched the trout keeping themselves steady in the current with wavering fins. As he watched them they changed their positions by quick angles, only to hold steady in the fast water again." The sight of trout lifts Nick out of his dark mood; nature is a haven from the injuries and disappointments human beings inflict upon each other. Hemingway often voices this pessimism, but it is nowhere to be found when his protagonists are in the natural world, even when Nick Adams confronts the destruction of the town he remembers. "Seney was burned, the country was burned over and changed, but it did not matter. It could not all be burned."
In The Road, everything is burned—the result of an apocalyptic event (whether of natural or human origin is never clear) that killed virtually all forms of life and that threatens, a decade later, to wipe out the human race. There is no limit to the devastation, only new forms of its expression, and McCarthy renders these up in lush, sensuous prose that belies the inertness of its object and keeps the reader in a constant state of longing and alarm. "The soft black talc blew through the streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor and the cold crept down and the dark came early and the scavengers passing down the steep canyons with their torches trod silky holes in the drifted ash that closed behind them silently as eyes." But these gorgeous descriptions are a foil, a tease—nature as we know it exists only in the dreams and memories of the man and in the questions of his son, who was born days after the apocalypse and talks of crows, the sun—now permanently obscured—and the blue sea with the same mythical longing one hears in today's children's talk of queens and dragons. Early in the novel, the man looks at a river now empty of life and recalls seeing trout: "He'd stood at such a river once and watched the flash of trout deep in a pool, invisible to see in the teacolored water except as they turned on their sides to feed. Reflecting back the sun deep in the darkness like a flash of knives in a cave."
The man, who goes unnamed, is an outdoorsman in the Hemingway tradition. His savvy and wits kept him alive through the apocalypse—he began filling a bathtub with water as soon as he heard the explosions—and have sustained him and his son through the following years of misrule by marauding gangs of thugs who steal, kill, and eat the only fresh food still available: human flesh. His keen instincts rescue the pair several times over the course of the book as they head south, toward the coast, hoping for warmer weather. He's good at building and repairing things, and McCarthy enumerates the mechanics of this work with a meditative absorption that evokes Hemingway. Here the man repairs the wheel of their cart: "… He pulled the bolt and bored out the collet with a hand drill and resleeved it with a section of pipe he'd cut to length with a hacksaw. Then he bolted it all back together and stood the cart upright and wheeled it around the floor. It ran fairly true."
Our literary expectation is that the man's ingenuity will redeem him, but while it's true that he and the boy survive a number of scrapes in The Road, the agony of the novel is that things are getting worse, not better. At one time the man used to teach the boy lessons, but that has fallen away. Now he's coughing up blood and knows he will soon die of some affliction to his lungs—perhaps caused by the explosions and ceaseless fires that still burn. On a denatured planet, the man's survival skills are focused purely on scavenging for and protecting his son, whom he cares for with passionate devotion. The bulk of The Road consists of the rituals of child-care and child rearing, which McCarthy renders with a tenderness that is a world apart from that of Nick Adams, whose father delivered a child before his eyes and inveighed against masturbation, bestiality, and fear of the woods. In a bomb shelter the man finds underground, he tries to cut the boy's hair: "He tried to do a good job and it took some time. When he was done he took the towel from around the boy's shoulders and he scooped the golden hair from the floor and wiped the boy's face and shoulders with a damp cloth and held a mirror for him to see."
Later, when the boy is sick, McCarthy writes of the man: "He held him all night, dozing off and waking in terror, feeling for the boy's heart. In the morning he was no better. He tried to get him to drink some juice but he would not. He pressed his hand to his forehead, conjuring up a coolness that would not come. He wiped his white mouth while he slept. I will do what I promised, he whispered. No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone."
It's worth asking whether this passage would seem mawkish if the parent in question were a woman—whether the literary trappings of self-conscious maleness are what allow McCarthy to maintain such agonizing pathos while inoculating him against sentimentality and, by association, triviality. His single failure in The Road, interestingly, comes in his treatment of the boy's mother, who appears in an early flashback to inform her husband that she's chosen to kill herself rather than face the end of the world. The lifeless rhetoric McCarthy ascribes to her as she justifies abandoning her child makes for a two-dimensional contrast to the lively characterizations of father and son.
Beyond the immediate struggle for survival, the deep struggle explored in The Road is that of raising a child in a world without hope; and for the boy, the complementary challenge of assuming the responsibilities of manhood in such a world. There would seem to be nothing to sustain these two—the natural world exists only in effigy, and the remaining humans have mostly sacrificed their humanity as the price of survival. Yet the boy is constantly seeking to define a moral structure he can live by—one that accounts for the fact that his father doesn't help stray people on the road, but still ensures their own distinction from the cannibals. After they discover a basement full of human prisoners who will be used for food, the boy asks: "We wouldn't ever eat anybody, would we?"
No. Of course not.
Even if we were starving?
We're starving now.
You said we weren't.
I said we weren't dying. I didn't say we weren't starving.
But we wouldn't.
No. We wouldn't.
No matter what.
No. No matter what.
Because we're the good guys.
And we're carrying the fire.
And we're carrying the fire. Yes.
The existence of a moral structure—the will to do good—is the soaring discovery hidden in McCarthy's scourged planet. He evokes Hemingway's literary vision in order to invert it, first by eliminating the promise that nature can provide a refuge from human destruction (an appropriate revision in our era of nuclear rogues and global warming) and finally by giving us redemption in the form of the love between a parent and a child—their desire to be good although it serves no purpose. McCarthy is overt in his suggestion that this vision is holy. As the dying man is cared for by his son, he describes the boy as being surrounded by light. Watching him, the man seems to address some higher power directly with his mind: "Look around you, he said. There is no prophet in the earth's long chronicle who's not honored here today. Whatever form you spoke of you were right."
In the novel's final passage, eerily reminiscent of "Big Two-Hearted River," McCarthy returns to the image of trout: "Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow … On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back." Hemingway's emotional and spiritual refuge is long gone. But the redemption, McCarthy seems to say, was in us all the time.


text:
Understanding Audi
- Multitronic
The multitronic® is a continuously variable transmission. It combines the dynamics and economy of a manual gearbox with the convenience of automatic transmission.
The smooth and powerful acceleration achieved with the multitronic is a major advantage over a conventional automatic gearbox and, because the engine is kept running close to its optimum operating point, fuel consumption is generally lower than with a manual gearbox.
A power-transmitting steel link-plate chain (tension chain) runs in an oil bath between two pairs of variable conical pulleys. These form the variator. The link-plate chain, consisting of over 1,000 link plates and 75 pairs of pins, can transmit torques of up to 330 newton metres. Pushing the faces of the two conical pulleys closer together or moving them further apart causes the link-plate chain to run further towards the inside or outside of the pairs of conical pulleys. This produces continuous adjustment of the gear ratio to achieve the optimum in every driving situation.
The adjustment of the conical surfaces takes place hydraulically and is based on various control characteristics. A hydraulic torque sensor ensures that the link-plate chain is always correctly tensioned and that the torque is transferred without slip.
The hydraulic multi-plate clutch achieves better ride comfort and agility thanks to its electronic control. It also helps to reduce fuel consumption.
If the driver applies the brakes when waiting at traffic lights, for example, the electronics reduce the tendency to creep forwards by decoupling the engine and the gearbox.
All the control parameters from the driver, engine and vehicle are registered by the electronic-hydraulic control unit in the gearbox housing. The dynamic gear control program (DCP) thus recognises from the position and movement of the accelerator whether the driver is adopting a sporty or a fuel-saving style of driving.
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we now have a plan b
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Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 21333
Location: under the bed
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 10:37 am
Post subject: we now have a plan b
August 24, 2006
Morning After Pill Is Cleared for Wider Sales
By GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 The Food and Drug Administration today approved over-the-counter sales of the morning-after contraceptive pill to women 18 and older, resolving one of the most contentious issues in the agencys 100-year history.
The drug, an emergency contraceptive called Plan B that is manufactured by Barr Laboratories, will be sold only in pharmacies and health clinics. To buy it, women will have to show proof of age. Girls under the age of 18 will still need a prescription to get the drug.
Acting F.D.A. Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach said in a memorandum released this morning that he had decided that 18 was the appropriate cut-off age for sales because pharmacies already restrict nicotine and cold medicines that way.
This approach builds on well-established state and private-sector infrastructures to restrict certain products to consumers 18 and older, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach wrote.
Dr. von Eschenbachs predecessor, Dr. Lester M. Crawford, said last year that science supported giving over-the-counter access of the drug to women as young as 17, but that he could not figure out how to ensure that such an age restriction was enforced.
The agency has decided to rely on voluntary compliance with the rules, since neither federal drug regulators nor Barr plans to police the age restriction. A memorandum written by Dr. Steven Galson, director of the F.D.A.s drug center, said that Barr should send to state pharmacy boards any reports that it happens to receive of pharmacists who repeatedly sell Plan B to minors. Barr has agreed not to sell the pills at gas stations or convenience stores, to ensure better compliance with the rules.
Anti-abortion groups strongly opposed Barrs application to switch Plan B from prescription to over-the-counter status, saying that the medicine is an abortion pill whose widespread availability could lead to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases.
Abortion rights advocates pushed equally hard to get the application approved, contending that easy access to Plan B would sharply reduce the nearly 1 million abortions performed each year in the United States.
Both sides are wrong, studies suggest. Couples in the United States have so much unprotected sex half of all pregnancies are unplanned that even if the pills were passed out like lollipops, they would be unlikely to cause a major change in abortion and disease rates.
Emergency contraceptives dont work if, like condoms, theyre left in the drawer, said Dr. James Trussell, director of the office of population research at Princeton University. And studies show that even if women have the pills on hand, the drawer is where they remain.
Indeed, Plan Bs effect on the F.D.A. and its image may well overshadow its public health impact. The agency has been considering the switch for three years, through three different commissioners.
I cannot recall any other issue in my 45 years of watching F.D.A. that has garnered this much attention at all levels of government, said Peter Barton Hutt, a former general counsel for the agency who now teaches drug law at Harvard.
The director of the agencys office of womens health resigned last year to protest what she said was the abortion politics behind the delay in approving Plan B. An investigation by the Government Accountability Office concluded that top agency officials had decided to reject the initial Plan B application months before a scientific review was complete.
Sworn depositions show that some of the agencys science staff members were convinced that no amount of scientific evidence would have persuaded the agencys political appointees to approve the application.
Dr. John Jenkins, director of the agencys office of new drugs, said in a deposition that his boss, Dr. Steven Galson, told him that he felt he didnt have a choice but to reject the application, according to transcripts provided to The New York Times.
And he characterized that in a sense that he wasnt sure that he would be allowed to remain as center director if he didnt agree with the action, Dr. Jenkins said. Dr. Galson, director of the agencys drug center, is Dr. Jenkins boss.
Dr. Florence Houn, director of the office that evaluated the Plan B application, said that she was told by Dr. Janet Woodcock, a deputy F.D.A. commissioner, that a rejection was necessary to appease the administrations constituents, and then later this could be approved.
Drs. Galson and Woodcock both said in their own depositions and public statements that scientific considerations drove their decisions. One memorandum that has since been made public states that Dr. Woodcock told agency employees that she feared that Plan B could take on urban legend status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Democrat from New York, and Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington State, became so concerned about the delays surrounding Plan B that they placed a legislative hold on Dr. Crawfords nomination last year as F.D.A. commissioner.
The senators lifted the hold after Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt promised that the F.D.A. would act on the Plan B application by Sept. 1 of last year. Dr. Crawford was confirmed.
The agency then announced a further delay in the application, something Ms. Murray said in an interview amounted to the worst double-cross Ive ever seen in my time in the Senate. Mr. Leavitt responded that the delay amounted to an action.
When Dr. Crawford unexpectedly resigned weeks later, the senators said that they would not be fooled again. They have held up Dr. von Eschenbachs nomination to become commissioner, saying that this time they want a Plan B decision first.
The agency added to this strange history today when it released several documents supporting its Plan B decision, including an extraordinary 7-page memorandum by Dr. Galson that clarifies some of his earlier statements.
The memo explains why he now agrees with Dr. von Eschenbach that 18 is a better age restriction than 17, and offers a detailed rebuttal of a previously undisclosed suggestion by subordinates that complaints about noncompliant pharmacists be sent to the federal agency instead of state pharmacy boards.
In a press briefing on Monday, President Bush was asked whether he supported Dr. von Eschenbachs intention to approve over-the-counter sales of Plan B a rare moment when a president addressed an application pending before the agecny.
Mr. Bush said that minors should need a prescription to obtain Plan B.
And I support Andys decision, he said.
The Plan B application has also seeped into popular culture. Earlier this month, Plan B was the subject of a passionate argument on the popular TV talk show, The View.
Still, confusion about the medicine is widespread. Many womens health clinics pass out cards explaining the difference between Plan B, a contraceptive, and RU-486, the abortion drug.
Plan B is made from a synthetic hormone found in regular oral contraceptives. It should be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, and like The Pill, it generally acts by preventing ovulation or fertilization, according to the agency. Plan B may in rare circumstances prevent a fertilized egg from becoming implanted something abortion opponents decry. But regular oral contraceptives would prevent implantation in the same way.
RU-486, on the other hand, causes a woman to miscarry a well-established pregnancy.
18, i guess, is a reasonable compromise (although even 17 year olds have driver's licenses, i don't know why that one guy couldn't figure that out) - at least it's finally out of the hands of the political appointees.
whatever you think of the pill itself, you have to be appalled at the attitude of the "new" fda, in ignoring the science for the partisan political concerns.
aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter
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Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 1357
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:31 pm
Post subject: Who was left to alienate?
Find some religious radio stations, quick.
The religious right is collectively shitting a brick over Bush approving this.
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Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 21333
Location: under the bed
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:34 pm
Post subject:
thanks, but no thanks. i shall look forward to newspaper stories of the hellfire and damnation they will rain upon him.
aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter
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Major Tom
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 7564
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:38 pm
Post subject: Re: Who was left to alienate?
Marik wrote:
Find some religious radio stations, quick.
The religious right is collectively shitting a brick over Bush approving this.
don't worry
bush appeased them by taking "
evolutionary biology
" off of the list of college majors approved for receipt of government grants in the middle of the night
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Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 11378
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 3:32 pm
Post subject: ever
I have no idea who did that but if Bush did indeed have a hand in it, then it would be
1. hilarious, and
2. never confirmed
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Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Posts: 2581
Location: Alba Nuadh
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 5:28 pm
Post subject:
Say it ain't so, Major Tom
bi-chromaticism is the extraordinary belief that there exists only two options
each polar opposite to each other
where one is completely superior to the other.
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Major Tom
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 7564
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 6:08 pm
Post subject:
well, it's true i can't provide proof of the bushprints, but...
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Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 14432
Location: Unknown Kaddath
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 7:02 pm
Post subject:
the Panda's Thumb entry
on that federal list. Also missing are HVAC technology and Exercise Physiology.
The HVAC stuff I can pass as nobody wanting to admit Global Warming is real, but exercise?
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Joined: 20 Jul 2006
Posts: 3772
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 11:32 pm
Post subject:
Well, see,
The Exorcist
scared Bush Jr., and he's not exactly the best with differentiating passingly similar words, so he figured exercise phsyiology must be related. Thus, it's gone.
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Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 14432
Location: Unknown Kaddath
Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:19 pm
Post subject:
Update on the Evolutionary Biology SMART grant situation
. Apparently it was an error of omission. I'm almost cynical enough to harbor doubts about that.
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Major Tom
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 7564
Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:23 pm
Post subject:
sure, that was the explanation from the start -- no one knows how or who, despite the fact that it's not an easy omission to accomplish.
no one authorized it; it wasn't supposed to happen, as far as what anyone involved has actually said.
but it's still not back on the list -- or, at least, wasn't several days after eveyone was saying there was no reason for it not to be.
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Thy Brilliance
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 3661
Location: Relative
Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:51 pm
Post subject:
No one ever hands out lollipops anymore.
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The CepEsperu NCORP (NCI
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a dance performed by eurotrash, commonly seem on the island of ibiza. The dance consists of keeping the arms out like you are holding a box and not moving them. Then stomping the feet side to side while turning the shoulders slightly.
That guy dancing on the table over there has been gorilla stomping for over an hour. He must be tripping on e.
by nico464 October 05, 2009
buy the domain for your art vlog


text:
Press and Media Centre
In this section of the website you will find the latest Callcredit news, research and insight, company images, client testimonials, case studies and industry news.
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Youth, youth-mentor, open hunts available on 4,775 acres of private land, four public areas; application deadline March 19
PRATT — To enhance the 2010 spring turkey hunting experience, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) is joining with private landowners to offer special spring turkey hunts. Special hunts will be offered in 12 counties (Chase, Clay, Douglas, Ellsworth, Greenwood, Leavenworth, Osage, Ottawa, Reno, Riley, Sumner, and Wabaunsee), opening up 4,775 acres for 118 special hunt opportunities. In addition, special hunts are being offered at Benedictine Bottoms Wildlife Area, Pottawatomie State Fishing Lake #2, Eisenhower State Park, and Marais des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge.
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Access to lands enrolled in these special hunts will be limited to foot traffic only, unless posted otherwise. Each property will have special restrictions for dates allowed and type of hunt that will be listed on the application. For more information regarding the special hunts program or applications, phone Jake George at 620-672-5911.


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Khon Kaen Art and Cultural Centre
Ubol Ratana Dam
Ubolratana dam is the largest multi-purpose dam in the Northeast. To get there, take Highway No. 2 (Khon Kaen-Udon Thani) for 26 kilometres, turn left and drive for 24 kilometres. The dam is across the Phong river at the pass connecting Phu Kao and Phu Phan mountains. The view at the dam is magnificent. Tourists regularly frequent the area to look at the lake and sample local delicacies, including the famous grilled fish famous here.
Phu Wiang National Park
This national park always reminds tourists about dinosaurs. Indeed, nobody had formerly ever though the Isan plateau was once home of dinosaurs. Until 1976 when a uranium survey team discovered a piece of fossil, which was examined by French specialists and declared that it was a left knee bone of a dinosaur. After that, serious execration has never ended until now.


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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
Assemblyman John Ceretto, R-I-Lewiston, released a statement Wednesday in support of a plan put forth in the New York State Parks scoping process for the redevelopment of the Robert Moses Parkway along the Niagara Falls waterfront. He said alternative design No. 3 provides the best opportunity for this region to open the waterfront to economic development that will benefit all the residents of Niagara Falls. Ceretto submitted the statement as part of the public comment period on the plan, which ended this week.
"If properly utilized, the waterfront can be a major economic benefit to Niagara Falls," he said. "The alternative three plan is the best way to promote economic development and meet the needs of the community. Opening up the waterfront would allow our residents and tourists to enjoy the beauty of the area and generate additional revenues and jobs that will benefit everyone living in Niagara Falls."


text:
There's a first step that every single Java project has to go through: setting up a build system. And often before that, choosing a build system. There hasn't been much improvement in the Java world in this area for quite a while; Ant 1.1 was released in July 2000 and Maven was created in 2004.
his lack of innovation could seem strange: for non trivial projects (which most end up being after some time), writing build scripts can take a lot of time. Given that builds usually aren't shipped to users, the time spent on their maintenance can seem like time lost... but a sub-optimal build system will actually make you lose time. So down the road, the best build is the one that saves you the most time when writing, debugging, and maintaining your scripts.
I started working on Raven because I was deeply dissatisfied with the solutions available in the Java world. And from what I've heard from other developers, I'm not the only one.
Now I'm going to say something controversial: both Ant and Maven have their strengths and weaknesses, but these tools are just toys compared to a full scripting environment. Think conditions, loops, exceptions, complex data structures. Most of all, think of all the details that you forgot to think about, all the little quirks and peculiarities that appear on most projects. What is going to be most powerful to solve these problems, a simple XML grammar or a full and powerful scripting language (not to mention Turing complete)? Would you rather write copy source, target or 3 lines of XML? And what fallback do you have when you're not within the boundaries imposed by the tool?
Getting Practical
Raven is based on the Ruby dynamic language and its most prominent build tool, Rake. Don't worry, you don't have to know either to read this article or start using Raven, you can learn little by little, starting simple. Rake itself is a little bit like Ant, it lets you define tasks and the dependencies between them. Only its syntax is much sweeter. For example:
task "hello" do
puts "Hello"
task "world" => "hello" do
puts "World"
If you have Rake installed, put this in a file named Rakefile and execute rake world in a command in the same directory as the file. It will do what you would expect. Note that the syntax could be even more terse by using { ... } blocks on one line instead of do ... end but this demonstrates the most common case, where you'll have more than one line of code in your task body. And you can put pretty much any Ruby code within the task block (and even Java code as we'll be using JRuby), even rely on external libraries, instantiate objects, and call methods. Your build can be as simple or as complex as you need.
The limitation is that Rake only provides very generic tasks that just wrap some classic Ruby code but don't do anything much by themselves. You have to tell them what to do in the nested code. That's where Raven shines. To make the life of Java developers easier, Raven adds a set of predefined tasks that implement the most common needs for a Java build system, like compiling or resolving jar dependencies. Just like a library, but instead of being a set of classes and methods, it's a set of reusable tasks that are well-suited for Java builds. So, all the tasks you're going to see in the rest of this article are implemented by Raven.
But wait, I haven't told you how to install anything. The quickest way to get started is to use Raven packaged with JRuby (a Ruby interpreter written in Java), everything necessary is bundled in it.
- Download the Raven distribution prepackaged with JRuby.
- Unzip it on your disk and set the environment variable JRUBY_HOME to this location.
- Add %JRUBY_HOME%\bin to your PATH environment variable.
- Check your installation by typing jruby -v in a command window.
A Simple ProjectTo show you how to use Raven, I'm going to start with a simple but still a real world example: building Apache Commons Net. The Apache Commons Net library implements the client side of many network protocols like FTP or SMTP. Right now, their build is based on Ant and is mildly complex, so it's a pretty good candidate for me to present Raven.
Raven being just a set of specific tasks (plus a bit more, but we'll see that later), the whole build is still directed by Rake. So, all of the code I'm going to show is part of a file named Rakefile that should be placed at the root of the Commons Net unpacked source distribution. When you start Rake, it always looks for that script.
This first snippet demonstrates initialization and dependency handling:
require "raven"
require "rake/clean"
CLEAN.include ["target", "dist"]
dependency "compile_deps" do |task|
task.deps << "oro-oro"
The two first lines load Raven and a Rake subtask for cleaning. The require command in Ruby is a bit like import, only it can load either a whole library (like Raven) or a single file. The third line tells Rake which directories should be removed by the clean task.
Lines 5 to 7 demonstrate the usage of the Raven dependency task. Commons Net depends on the Jakarta ORO library, so we're adding a dependency on it. It's just about listing which set of libraries will be needed. Calling the task (by executing rake compile_deps) will actually trigger the library download from a default Raven repository and depending on it will propagate a proper classpath as we'll see later. Also note that you can specify more than one library at a time and also give version numbers (Raven uses the latest by default). All of these library declarations are valid within a dependency task:
task.deps << ["springframework-spring-core",
{ "taglibs-standard" => "1.1.2" }]
task.deps << ["axis2-kernel", "axis2-codegen"]
The provided name should follow the Maven naming of groupId and artifactId separated by a dash. Browse the Raven repository to see which libraries are available. Partial names can also be provided when there's no ambiguity. Now that we're done with dependencies, let's see what compilation would look like:
javac "compile" => "compile_deps" do |task|
task.build_path << "src/java"
jar "commons-net.jar" => "compile"
The javac task is another of the tasks that Raven provides. What it does is pretty simple to understand. The => notation declares the pre-requisite on the dependencies. From this Raven can automatically compute the classpath for you. Notice that we are also setting the build path. It needs to be explicit as Commons Net has its sources under src/java. If it were under src/main/java, no additional configuration would be needed, making this the sweet one-liner:
javac "compile" => "compile_deps"
Finally, once compilation is done, the previous snippet also packages everything in a jar. That's the role of the jar task. The produced jar file is directly named like the task, minimizing the number of parameters.
With everything I've explained so far, you should end up with a 10 line Rakefile located at the root of the Commons Net source distribution. To run the build, just execute rake commons-net.jar and everything should get built in a target directory. You could also add a default task so that just running rake would build your jar:
task "default" => "commons-net.jar"
Some More
Compiling and packaging is nice, but it's usually only the first step in a build. For example, the Commons Net Ant script also handles tests and Javadoc. How would you do this with Raven? Once again, it's pretty simple, really.
junit "test"=>["compile", "compile_deps", "test_deps"] do |task|
task.build_path << "src/test"
task.test_classes << "**/*Test.java"
javadoc "jdoc" do |task|
task.build_path << "src/java"
You probably don't need much of an explanation to understand what this does. Just note that the settings inside the tasks are here because Commons Net directory structure doesn't follow the Raven defaults. If the tests were located under src/test/java and the test classes followed the Test* pattern, the tasks would just be empty.
There are a few other tasks that I won't detail much more here, but that you should know of, in case you would need one of them.
Builds a jar file containing your project sources
Builds a WAR file from your compiled classes and the additional web application resources located under src/main/webapp
Creates a library directory and places all your project dependencies in it, makes it very easy to construct a classpath for your command scripts (bat or sh)
On the Shoulders of Giants
To be complete, our real life example should include a way to build a distribution. The Commons Net original build has a dist task and, even if it didn't, distribution is a pretty common use case, perhaps even the most common. So, how would you go about doing it with Raven? Well, errr, you don't. There's nothing in Raven to help you build distributions. You see, there's no real standard way to make a distribution, it really depends on what you want to include. But don't worry, you're not left alone here. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Raven is built on top of Rake, which itself runs in a full Ruby interpreter. So our dist task is just going to be a simple Rake task:
lib_dir("dist:libs" => "compile_deps") do |task|
task.target = "dist/lib"
task "dist" => ["commons-net.jar", "dist:libs"] do
cp ["LICENSE.txt", "NOTICE.txt", "target/commons-net.jar"], "dist"
File.open("dist/README.txt", "w") { |f| f << "Built on #{Time.now}" }
The first line of code demonstrates the usage of the lib_dir task that I explained previously. Then comes the interesting bit. The dist task is a standard Rake task, it only checks for the prerequisites and executes the code body afterward. Here I'm just making sure that the jar has been built and the libraries are included in a lib sub-directory. The rest is pure and simple Ruby.
Rake pre-includes a Ruby module that handles all basic file operations. Things like cp (copy), mv (move), mkdir (make directory), or rm (remove). That's pretty handy in a build where you typically do a lot of file manipulations. So, the first line in my task block copies the license, the notice file, and the produced jar in the distro directory. The cp method, just like most of the others, accept arrays.
The second line demonstrates how you would go about tweaking some file content. I'm creating a new README file (the "w" flag means new file) and adding a simple timestamp in it. Don't be put off by the #{..} syntax inside the string, it's just a way to place the result of a computation of a variable value inside of a string (the equivalent of "Built on" + new Date().toString()). Typically you would append that type of information in your README using the w+ flag, but Commons Net doesn't have a README, so I'm just creating an empty one here.
With the dist task, our build is complete, I've shown you everything that was needed to replace the original Ant script. We've reduced a 170 lines build to a 20 lines one. That's almost 10 times less code to maintain. But to drive my point a little further, just let me give you one last example that would demonstrate the usage of a control structure:
MODULES = ["web", "business", "persistence"]
MODULES.each do |mod|
javac "#{mod}:compile" => ["#{mod}_deps", "common_deps"]
This would create a compilation task for a given list of modules. No need to repeat, just iterate. You can even create a method and call it from a task with specific parameters. Very basic things when you're programming, but something we've lost with most current build tools.
I hope you're now starting to see how much power being based on a scripting language like Ruby gives to Raven. You have a pretty strong and terse basis with a set of Java-specific tasks provided by Raven, simple cases are very simple to write. For everything that doesn't fit in the framework, you have an elegant safety net (in place of a plugin framework).
Other Choices
Raven isn't the only one of its kind, it's my answer to the build problem and to the dissatisfaction I had with the currently available tools. Others came with other solutions coming from the same frustrations, and I don't pretend that my solution will be the best for everybody. So, there are a couple of alternatives, built on the same foundations as Raven, namely Rake, but with a different philosophy.
The first alternative would be Antwrap. I wouldn't actually consider it a replacement for Raven, so much as a very good complement. It lets you reuse all existing Ant tasks that have already been created, but with a much nicer syntax than XML. So, you could use Raven for everything that's already included and Antwrap when an existing Ant task does what you're looking for, all within the same script.
The second tool is Buildr. It's an Apache Incubator project and completely overlaps with Raven, so it could be a total replacement. The difference is in the philosophy: Raven is imperative, asking you to write how to build your project; Buildr is more declarative, you specify what your build looks like. So, said differently, those of you who prefer the style of Ant over Maven will prefer Raven, those who are more seduced by the Maven model will probably find Buildr more seducing. And I don't see this as a problem, software is also a matter of preferences and taste, you should just use the tool that makes you most comfortable.


text:
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text:
Difference between revisions of "USS Black Hawk-A"
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Greenfelt22 (Talk | contribs)
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| style="background:#76181D;" | Chief Flight Control Officer
| style="background:#76181D;" | Chief Flight Control Officer
| '''[http://www.ussblackhawk.com/index.php/
| '''[http://www.ussblackhawk.com/index.php//]'''
| [[File:
| [[File:.png|Lieutenant ]]
| style="background:#76181D;" | Chief Strategic Operations Officer
| style="background:#76181D;" | Chief Strategic Operations Officer
Revision as of 21:02, 2 July 2016
|USS Black Hawk
|Class Information
|Assigned System:
Gavaran Sector
|Task Group:
TG3: Belvedere
Captain Harvey Geisler
Cmdr. Thiago Teixeira
|Crew Compliment
|Unique Features
The USS Black Hawk is an Akira-Class starship assigned to Task Force 9. It is currently operating as a member of Task Group Belvedere and is seeking to cleanse Belvedere of The Consortium.
Dominion War
Commissioned in 2373 during the height of the Dominion War, the USS Black Hawk, under the command of Captain Mitch Bueller, saw plenty of combat. Captain Bueller was an excellent tactician and was given the responsibility of commanding the entire Starfighter Wing for the Third Fleet. Under his direction, the Black Hawk led many successful missions during the war.
Until the Battle of Kalendra, that is.
The Black Hawk led allied forces into the system. Captain Bueller's tactics were on the verge of becoming textbook, a fact that the Dominion was prepared to exploit. The Black Hawk was targeted the moment the battle started. Nearly an entire Jem'hadar attack wing came down on the Black Hawk and her companions. Most of other ships were destroyed or disabled within five minutes.
But not the Black Hawk.
Within two minutes, her shields were overwhelmed and the warp drive disabled. Instead of simply destroying the ship, the Jem'hadar boarded the vessel. This battle, it seemed, had become personal.
With aid from a couple Miranda-class ships, the crew of the Black Hawk was able to retain control of their vessel, but their spirits were broken. As the Allied Forces declared victory, the Black Hawk was towed back to Andoria for repairs. She sat out most of the war; seeing her next and last bit of action at Cardassia Prime, but without a starfighter squadron to call the Black Hawk home.
Following the war, the Black Hawk was assigned close to Sector 001. She did see some variations of duty, including patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone in the early 2380's. Before the Hobus Supernova, the Black Hawk was recalled to Earth.
Current Era
As Task Force 9 expanded deeper into the Gamma Quadrant, the Black Hawk was refitted and reassigned to join the Task Force, accepting Commander Harvey Geisler as the first Commanding Officer to take her into the edge of known space. Commander Geisler assumed command in late 2387. As he led the ship into the far reaches of the Gamma Quadrant, the mystery of the frontier became Harvey's new obsession, wanting to uncover truth and make an impact much like he did as a young lieutenant who worked feverishly to cure disease and pestilence.
For a complete overview of the USS Black Hawk's specifications, please visit the sim's website.
Senior Staff
|Commanding Officer
|Harvey Geisler
|Executive Officer
|Thiago Teixeira
|Chief Flight Control Officer
|Felix Langston
|Chief Strategic Operations Officer
|Mark Davis
|Chief Operations Officer / Second Officer
|Temerant Bast
|Chief Security/Tactical Officer
|Camila Di Pasquale
|Chief Engineering Officer
|Parisa Rykov DCS
|Chief Science Officer
|Adam Casey
|Chief Medical Officer
|Jayla Kij
|Avery Stuart PhD
|Squadron Commander
|Terry Walsh
Out of Character Background
The USS Black Hawk was first launched under the command of Captain Mitch Bueller in the now-defunct Alpha Quadrant simulation group in 2005. Upon reasons that were not made public, Captain Bueller resigned his command and moved on from simming. This was the first time that Harvey Geisler took command.
For three years, minus one short break, the Black Hawk remained under Geisler's command. Following his second resignation, the sim floundered for a few months before finally being shuttered in 2008. All of the crew was either transferred off to other AQSG sims or left the group all together.
Geisler returned to simming in 2012, and one year later dared to relaunch the USS Black Hawk in Bravo Fleet in December 2013. More than two years later, the Black Hawk continues to perform as one of Bravo Fleet's top simulations.
- October 2015: Bravo Fleet (TF9) Sim of the Month
- Fall 2015: Bravo Fleet Sim of the Quarter
- February 2016: Bravo Fleet (TF9) Sim of the Month


text:
"The Super Cyclists"
(production #80-25, first aired on ABC 11/1/1975)
Featured 1975 New Tom & Jerry Cartoon Of The Week
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Set your dial for a while! Have a laugh! Wear a smile! It's the section for those who grew up watching the 1970s version of T&J! Chasing that rare never-before-photographes Pip Squaker bird? Wish to become Supercape's super deputies? Talk about it here!
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Featured 1975 New Tom & Jerry Cartoon Of The Week
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text:
So, what should be the over-arching goal of our transportation efforts in this country? Reducing vehicle crashes? Reducing traffic congestion? In terms of dollars, which effort offers the best return on investment (ROI) calculation?
From a new report out by AAA (a group formerly known as the American Automobile Association ... now its name is just an acronym) from a monetary perspective, we should be focus on crash reduction efforts - period.
AAA found in its research that cost to society from vehicle crashes is a staggering $164.2 billion per YEAR in the U.S. - nearly two and a half times greater than the $67.6 billion price tag for congestion. In its report - "Crashes vs. Congestion: What's the Cost to Society?" - the group said the dollar figures demonstrate that traffic safety issues warrant increased attention from the public and policymakers, particularly as Congress prepares to reauthorize federal transportation programs in 2009.
"Great work has been done by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) to quantify the costs of congestion, raise awareness for the problem and offer solutions," said AAA President and CEO Robert Darbelnet, in terms of why his group went forward with is crashes vs. congestion report. "We feel safety deserves a similar focus."
According to the study conducted by Cambridge Systematics for AAA, the $164.2 billion cost for crashes equates to an annual per person cost of $1,051, compared to $430 per person annually for congestion. These safety costs include medical, emergency and police services, property damage, lost productivity, and quality of life, among other things.
The report calculates the costs of crashes for the same metropolitan areas covered by the annual Urban Mobility Report conducted by TTI. In every metropolitan area studied, from very large to small, the results showed crash costs exceeded congestion, said AAA. For very large urban areas (more than 3 million), crash costs are nearly double those of congestion. Those costs rise to more than seven times congestion costs in small urban areas (less than 500,000) where congestion is less of a challenge.
"Nearly 43,000 people die on the nation's roadways each year," said Darbelnet. "Yet, the annual tally of motor vehicle-related fatalities barely registers as a blip in most people's minds. It's time for motor vehicle crashes to be viewed as the public health threat they are. If there were two jumbo jets crashing every week, the government would ground all planes until we fixed the problem. Yet, we've come to accept this sort of death toll with car crashes."
Darbelnet's comments I think strike a particularly important note here - heck, I've harped on the same theme myself. It just seems the general public in this country is totally blasé about the consequences of vehicle crashes - it seems to be a routine part of the landscape, just background noise. Truck drivers I talk to constantly tell me of their near misses caused by simply sloppy driving on the part of motorists - lane changes without proper signals or distance between vehicles, distracted driving as people talk on the phone, read, and otherwise reduce the attention paid to the road they hurdle down at 60, 70, even 80 miles an hour.
"This report states what we in the highway safety field have known all along - traffic crashes are not only a leading cause of death and life-changing injuries, they're also a serious drain on the economy nationwide," said Cathy Gillen, managing director of the Roadway Safety Foundation (RSF).
Maybe the dollar amounts quoted in AAA's study will finally get the publics' - and Congress' - attention. Then again, maybe not - this is a problem, after all, that's lagged in attention for decades now. One thing is for certain: we must address the cost of vehicle crashes sooner, not later. It's an unnecessary human tragedy and fiscal burden we can't afford to keep ignoring.


text:
W2W student, Darius Crane (second from right), stands with ( left to right)
Janene Horne, Student Services Coordinator, Mount Accelerated Undergraduate
Programs; Mary Beth Graham, Professor, Bolte Schol of Business;
Ed Nolan, academic Advisor, W2W Program; and Karl Einolf, Dean,
Bolte School of Business.
On Monday, December 3, 2012, the VA Acquisition Academy (VAAA) hosted a ceremony for the 23 veterans participating in the VAAA Warriors to Workforce (W2W) program in Frederick. All 23 completed the first year of their three-year program and received a certificate of achievement. The first year consisted of 30 semester hours of business courses taught by the professors from the Mount's Bolte School of Business and the completion of peak performance training.
Dr. Karl Einolf, Dean of the Bolte School, commended the students on their growth and development since the program's start. He thanked them for their service to our nation and commented on how impressed he was with their teamwork ethics that he witnessed firsthand as their professor. "I was inspired by the willingness of those who understood the material to help out their classmates. They quickly became a team- no one was going to be left behind," said Einolf.
The students completed the Mount program achieving a combined average GPA of 3.6. Fifteen in the group have also enrolled in the Mount's accelerated undergraduate courses with the goal of earning their baccalaureate.
The veterans will now begin two additional years of VA training in government acquisition. At the end of the third year, the W2W students will transfer to federal jobs across the county working as VA Contract Specialists. A new class of W2W students will start on February 19.